Beatdown - a Review

The decklists are from mtgnews.com and I'm hoping they're accurate or I'm going to have to do it all over again. I'll add a short description for less well-known cards to make the review easier to read. I'll put the rares in bold.

Ground Pounder

11x Mountain
11x Forest
1x Dwarven Ruins (sacs for RR)
1x Havenwood Battlegrounds (sacs for GG)
1x Slippery Karst (green cycle land)
1x Smoldering Crater (red cycle land)

1x Kird Ape
1x Raging Goblin
1x Bloodrock Cyclops (3/3 for 2R, must attack)
1x Ball Lightning(alternate art)
1x Viashino Warrior (4/2 for 3R)
1x Balduvian Horde(5/5 for 2RR and a random discard)
1x Lowland Giant (4/3 for 2RR)
1x Talruum Minotaur (3/3 for 2RR, haste)
1x Hulking Cyclops (5/5 for 3RR, can't block)
1x Thundering Giant (4/3 for 3RR, haste)
1x Shivan Dragon
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Quirion Elves
1x Woolly Spider (2/3 for 1GG, block flying and gets +0/+2)
1x Erhnam Djinn (alternate art, foil)
1x Deadly Insect
1x Plated Spider (4/4 for 4G, block flying)
1x Crashing Boars (4/4 for 3GG, must be blocked)
1x Shambling Strider (5/5 for 4GG, RG: +1/-1)
1x Yavimaya Wurm (6/4 for 4GG, trample)
1x Force of Nature
1x Scaled Wurm (7/6 for 7G)
1x Crash of Rhinos (8/4 for 6GG, trample)
1x Segmented Wurm (5/5 for 3RG, -1/-1 when target)
1x Clockwork Beast(alternate art)

1x Lightning Bolt
1x Shock
1x Sonic Burst (4 dam for 1R and discard)
1x Thunderbolt (4 dam to a flier or 3 dam to a player for 1R)
1x Lava Axe
1x Fireball
1x Fog
1x Giant Growth
1x Wild Growth
1x Rampant Growth

As a deck, it holds together reasonably well. The mana curve could be better, especially in the first few turns, but you should be able to churn out huge creatures every turn for quite a while. One thing I very much dislike about this deck is that there are no tricks to it. It contains no reset button, no interesting enchantments, nothing that will make your opponent sit up and take notice. There's just turn after turn of beatdown, which is probably how the set got its name. This deck will likely hold up very poorly against any deck with a troublesome enchantment like Worship or even Story Circle.

As for the rares, all except Clockwork Beast are sought-after rares, whether it's for sentimental value like Force of Nature or for being tournament worthy like Ball Lightning. Still, when you look at it, the rares are a bit bland. There's nothing like Verdant Force or Stampeding Wildebeests, both creatures that are good in their own right, but also inspire into building different decks around them.

Aerodoom

11x Island
11x Swamp
1x Svyelunite Temple (sacs for UU)
1x Ebon Stronghold (sacs for BB)
1x Polluted Mire (black cycle land)
1x Remote Isle (blue cycle land)

1x Cloud Elemental (2/3 for 2U, flying, only block flying)
1x Fog Elemental (4/4 for 2U, flying, one use only)
1x Snapping Drake (3/2 for 3U, flying)
1x Wayward Soul (3/2 for 2UU, flying, U: top of library)
1x Giant Crab (3/3 for 4U, U: untargettable)
1x Vigilant Drake (3/3 for 4U, flying, 2U: untap)
1x Air Elemental
1x Cloud Djinn (5/4 for 5U, flying, only block flying)
1x Blizzard Elemental(5/5 for 5UU, flying, 3U: untap)
1x Mahamoti Djinn
1x Leviathan
1x Feral Shadow (2/1 for 2B, flying)
1x Skittering Skirge
1x Skittering Horror
1x Tar Pit Warrior (3/4 for 2B, dies when targetted)
1x Gravedigger
1x Hollow Dogs
1x Fallen Angel(3/3 for 3BB, flying, sac creature: +2/+1)
1x Sengir Vampire (alternate art, foil)
1x Clockwork Avian

1x Brainstorm
1x Impulse
1x Tolarian Winds (1U, discard your hand, draw that many cards)
1x Counterspell
1x Gaseous Form
1x Power Sink
1x Dark Ritual
1x Diabolic Edict
1x Terror
1x Death Stroke (BB, destroy target tapped creature)
1x Bone Harvest
1x Coercion
1x Drain Life
1x Diabolic Vision (UB, rearrange top 5 cards of library, draw 1)

The other deck has clearly more fire power, but this one has a few tricks up its sleeve and enough library manipulation to find the tricks when they are needed. The tricks aren't very sophisticated, but against the ground pounders, they're bound to be useful. A few of the creatures can untap and fly, which means they're almost guaranteed to do damage each turn while still being available for blocking. Gravedigger and Bone Harvest allow the deck to reuse its best creatures and Wayward Soul should be a good extra blocker against the bigger creatures, because it can be reused to easily. The deck has some good disruption as well. Even Gaseous Form is a good way to get rid of something big, because your opponent has no enchantment removal at all. Diabolic Edict is probably not going to be very strong against such a creature heavy deck, especially as this deck has no mass removal whatsoever.

With some of the cards, you just have to wonder what the people who made the deck were thinking, though. Skittering Skirge and Skittering Horror don't work in creature heavy decks like this very well. Fog Elemental is really just a one use wall. And Leviathan? In a deck with only 11 Islands to begin with? That's just... wrong. I get that they're trying to put a 10/10 wall in the deck, but it's a bit expensive for that.

The rares fall mostly in the sentimental value category. Fallen Angel is the only one with some recent tournament experience in Rec/Sur decks. It'd be quite a nice rare, if it hadn't been uncommon in fifth edition. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it a mislabeled uncommon.

On the whole, the rares in either deck aren't very inspiring. It's a chance to get your hands on some old and tournament quality creatures and if that's your thing, you'll love Beatdown. I think I'll skip this one, though. I bought Anthologies and Battle Royal, because both had some quality rares, from old staples like Wrath of God and Nevinyrral's Disk to new staples like Living Death and Spike Weaver. I regularly use those cards in my decks, but what am I going to do with a Leviathan or a Force of Nature? They'll just sit in my card storage boxes, collecting dust. The uncommons in the set have the same problem. They're just creatures with nothing special going for them.

Beatdown is a good buy for fans of, well, beatdown. If you've always wanted a Force of Nature, a Shivan Dragon and a Leviathan, this is the set for you. If you like designing your own decks, though, my advice is to skip this one.